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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29834823">Laughter in the End Times</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesdaycoming/pseuds/tuesdaycoming'>tuesdaycoming</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>After the End Times [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath of Violence, Character Death, Directly after Rome, Gen, Grief, Helplessness, Implied Violence to Characters Off Screen, Mourning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:34:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,383</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29834823</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesdaycoming/pseuds/tuesdaycoming</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"When Rome starts to fall, Sasha is underground."</p><p>The fall of Rome and the digging of a grave.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cicero &amp; Sasha Racket, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam &amp; Sasha Racket</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>After the End Times [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2253644</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Laughter in the End Times</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Bit of a vent. Bit of a character study. There's more I wanted to do, but that might be another fic for another time.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Rome starts to fall, Sasha is underground. She doesn’t know these tunnels. In all the twisting centuries of building city over city, it is doubtful anyone does, but the layers are familiar enough to navigate. Grizzop is not heavy. This disturbs her. She knows it’s a fallacy. The value of something is not tied to it’s weight. Usually it’s the opposite unless she’s comparing a small thing like a diamond to another, smaller diamond, and when Sasha’s thoughts start tripping down that bolt hole, she drags them back to the goblin in her arms. He is dead weight; there is not much of it. There is fresher air coming from the left hand tunnel. Someone is screaming. Sasha keeps walking.</p><p>The first time Sasha thinks they might surface, she stops at the bottom of a rotting ladder and listens. When Cicero starts to speak, she lifts one finger from her hold and he stills. Something above them shuffles. A metal object chunks into wood flooring. The shuffling stops. Cicero gestures, two fingers walking up the air. Some languages hold their shapes through millennia, and her answering jab toward the tunnel on translates clearly. They walk half a kilometer before she speaks, Latin heavy on her tongue, “We keep going.” </p><p>“There are people there,” Cicero latches on to this first offering of conversation in hours, “Good people, probably. I saw you fighting. If there is a problem,” he makes a lunging motion that almost manages to be swordplay, “Yes?” </p><p>“Mate,” Sasha stops and turns. She sees the moment Cicero remembers she is holding Grizzop in her arms, realizes he could not see his legs or his ears breaking her silhouette in the dark as he followed her. This time, he has the grace to look ashamed, “I am good. He was <i>almost</i> as good as I am, and we’re still here. I can’t help nobody.” Sasha’s voice turns up at the end, and she catches her breath. “We keep going. Yeah?” She waits until Cicero nods. “Yeah.” </p><p>Sasha is still underground when Rome falls. It only takes a day, in the end, and when she breaches the surface with Grizzop over her shoulder, the night air is slung low with smoke. </p><p>She takes a deep breath in and holds the acrid burning in her lungs while Cicero coughs beside her. When he stumbles in the wreckage, Sasha flings a hand out to steady him but she can’t carry them both. The center of Rome was stone crumbled now to rubble. Here at the outskirts there is wood enough. Sasha grits her teeth in frustration and has to stutter step when she spots a good piece of what might have been a chicken coop or market stall. It will take two hands to break. “Cicero.” Sasha calls him over once he’s had a rest. Her arms are tired, but her muscles are tight and refuse to let go. When she gestures to the half broken wood, Cicero understands and fashions it into a walking stick that will carry him forward. </p><p>Somewhere, a baby is crying. </p><p>Sasha presses on. </p><p>“Whosaskinus.” Cicero does not follow. </p><p>“We can’t stay here. It’s bad news, all of it.” She does not turn around to face him. </p><p>“We cannot stay. It stands to reason a child cannot stay. We could debate it. I think I would win.” She could leave him here. That, Sasha thinks, is not a debate he could yell loud enough have, let alone win against her. There is no one to say stay or go, so she does not choose. Eventually, Cicero’s steps resume and she walks with him behind her.</p>
<hr/><p>Cicero calls it a villa. If Sasha were young, and she does not feel young anymore, she would have called it a fancy manor house full of things to steal and present in hopes of getting a hand on her shoulder, a “Well done, Sasha.” </p><p>“Yeah.” She says when Cicero finishes going on about the advantages of a well guarded place to sleep. He just wants to sleep. “It’ll do.”</p>
<hr/><p>Sasha has to put Grizzop down to dig the hole. When she starts, the sun is high and hot overhead. When the moon has replaced it, she stops. It’s not even a quarter moon. Just a sliver of silver hanging above the two of them as Cicero makes his way out to find her now that the thump and shift and ragged grunting of her work has quieted. Sasha wipes her brow and looks up. </p><p>“Figures, doesn’ it? See I told him, I <i>told</i> him it wasn’t—” Sasha feels her throat stopper up and her grip of the shovel hands grows tight enough to feel splinters twisting into her palm. </p><p>Cicero steps forward to wordlessly hold out two coins for her. They’re the same as she has in the bag of holding still at her waist. “He was one of Diana’s, yes? The…” When the words he tries don’t manage to sink in to Sasha’s understanding of Latin, Cicero mimes shooting an arrow with all the grace of a man who has never had to hold a bow. It’s possible he’s playing it up. </p><p>She smiles anyway. Wilde would be disappointed in her, Sasha thinks, for letting something so easy make her laugh, but he always had a hard sort of humor. He might think it was funny for Grizzop to die when the moon wasn’t full. Or maybe he’d just laugh at Sasha thinking that would have protected him. That it wasn’t his time if his stupid Lady wasn’t properly in the sky. </p><p>Sasha takes the coins from Cicero. “I’ll pay you back, right?” The hut look on his face reminds her too much of Wilde again so she looks away. No, Wilde probably wouldn’t have laughed at her. It’s hard to get Grizzop into the hole. He’s too small and its too deep, and when she puts the coins over his closed eyes they roll right off, and the adamantine rod that had been holding Sasha’s back up for the last forty-eight hours snaps in two. At the bottom of Grizzop’s grave, back against cool earth and an increasingly panicked Roman senator six feet above her peering down, Sasha starts to laugh. </p><p>“Ah.” Cicero starts and appears to run out of options quite quickly. Sasha snorts. </p><p>“Cicero. Cicero, mate. Do you know what his funeral rights are?” </p><p>“No, Whosaskinus. I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with Diana’s temple. Do you need help getting out of there?” </p><p>Sasha lifts a hand, shaking with exhaustion, and imitates the motions she saw Grizzop make, “Ashes to ashes, funk to funky. Go on and join the celestial hunty.” Her arm falls. It occurs to her that she’ll need to climb her way out of here. </p><p>“I don’t know that one. Is it Roman?” </p><p>“It’s Amsterdam.” Cicero doesn’t argue with her. </p><p>It takes a long time to get out of the hole. Longer to fill it up again. Sasha thinks she’s been pushed this hard before in that loose, hazy way she sometimes remembers training in Other London, like her brain doesn’t want to think about it too hard so it just doesn’t let her remember everything that happened, how it felt. This night might end up like those, but she hopes it doesn’t. This is a pain worth remembering. </p><p>Sasha sleeps for three days in dusty bed. When she can hold a dagger steady on her fingertips, she finds Cicero on his knees turning over earth in what he’s apparently hoping will become a garden. She stills for a moment on her walk there to watch him. It settles something in her to know he’s planning on whatever they’re doing here lasting for a while. Long enough for carrots to come up. </p><p>“Do you think that baby’s dead, Cicero?” He only startles a little at her silent appearance beside him. She smirks. </p><p>“It’s hard to say.” </p><p>“Probably other people like that though, ain’t there? What need help or whatever.” </p><p>He turns to look at her over his shoulder. It might be the sun that makes him squint. “Can you help them now?” Sasha shrugs. “Aw well. I will see you in a few days?” </p><p>“If I don’t die.” </p><p>“I do not think such a thing is possible, Whosaskinus.”</p>
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